


not so much as apparent, but more

by GoddessEris00



Series: Danny Heals 'verse [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-16
Updated: 2011-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-26 03:23:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessEris00/pseuds/GoddessEris00
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So it turns out Danny can secretly heal people. It is, obviously, not something he can keep from Steve for long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not so much as apparent, but more

**Author's Note:**

> Inter/sub-titles are from the song “The Boy who Blocked his own Shot” by Brand New.

_I. the skin stretched over your bones_

Steve and Chin are over with Kono and the EMTs. Chin is holding her hand tightly, while Steve hovers anxiously over the paramedics as they work. Danny is a little further away, carefully taking in the details of the scene. He needs to stay focused, so he looks at the pavement, at the sun glinting off of the bumper of the ambulance, at the blood. There is a lot of blood, but it could be worse. Danny was first to get to Kono after the perp got off a lucky shot, so he got to see the damage up close and personal, a mess of flesh and blood and bone. She’ll be okay, though. He doesn’t need to see the reassuring way the lead paramedic is talking to Chin, or the way the medical personnel’s movements have gone from urgent to simply efficient to know this. He made sure of it.

There is a lot of blood on his hands as well as soaked into his pants from where he knelt next to Kono. He would like to wipe it off, but somehow the thought of bloody handprints on his slacks seems wrong, despite the fact that they are already pretty much ruined. He’s very tired and the scene is taking on a faded, muted appearance so Danny forces himself to move closer as they load Kono into the back of an ambulance. She is fighting to sit up on the gurney, and he makes sure that he enters her line of sight. As covered in blood (her blood) as he is, he should not be at all reassuring to see, but she relaxes and lets the EMTs do their thing. Danny wonders how much of what happened she is aware of, whether he should be worried. But they are hooking her up to bags of blood and drugs, and as the ambulance drives off he thinks it is probably okay.

“Hey, you okay, Danny?”

Chin rode along in the ambulance, and Steve now directs that hovering concern at his partner.

“In all honesty, I’ve been better,” he says, meeting that considering gaze as evenly as possible. For all that he criticizes Steve for having no interpersonal skills, the SEAL is often surprisingly keyed in to his partner’s state of emotions. Danny knows that his voice sounds rough and scratchy, like he just woke up or is getting over a cold. He can feel all the telltale signs of a bad aftershock coming on, and there’s no way he wants it to happen in front of Steve.

“Hey, grab that spare towel out of the truck of the Camaro, would you, and cover the seat for me?” he asks. “If we’re done here, I’d like to get back to HQ, shower and then get the paperwork done.”

“If you want to just go home,” begins Steve, “or just talk about it…”

Danny shakes his head, regrets it immediately as his vision swims, but manages to hold steady.

“This may surprise you, coming from me,” he says, “but I do not, in fact, want to talk. What I want, in this exact order, is: towel, ride to the office, shower, successful completion of paperwork.” Without thinking about it, he counts off the items on his fingers as he goes down the list. Then, looking down at the bloodstained digits with a grimace, he continues: “Although if I could move the shower up on the list, I would.”

Talking to Steve is good, it’s helping him keep his focus, and his little rant seems to have worked to reassure his partner. The plan rolls out without a hitch until Danny is sitting at his desk with the paperwork. Steve’s manic driving and a cold shower had been enough to keep him going, but now as he sits alone in his office and tries to wrap up the case officially, his hand is almost shaking too hard to hold a pen and his typing is even worse than usual. It’s been a while; he had forgotten how quickly an aftershock could come on, and Danny knows that he needs to get home before it goes any further.

He is just stepping out of his office when he is waylaid by Steve who is holding up his cell triumphantly.

“Just got a text,” he begins, then pauses as he takes in Danny’s pale face and the keys clutched in his hand.

“I knew I should have taken you straight home,” he mutters, and it’s so randomly mother-hen that Danny snorts.

“I’m alright Steve, really,” he lies. It’s taking some effort not to slur his words at this point. “Just… tired. Emotionally drained, I guess.”

“Do you need a ride?”

He weighs the pros and cons of possibly passing out while driving versus passing out while Steve is driving—they both have downsides, but only one would potentially cause damage to himself and those around him. Steve’s face remains completely impassive during Danny’s internal debate, but the Jersey native has the feeling that there was only ever going to be one acceptable answer.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “Take me home, please.”

And Steve, who would have to be an idiot to not be suspicious by this point, simply herds him out the door while telling him about the text Chin has just sent: Kono is out of surgery and should recover with no complications. And if Danny leans into Steve’s touch a little more than is strictly normal, well, neither of them mentions it.

Words are definitely exchanged a short time later when Steve shows a creative interpretation of the word “home” that apparently includes his own, which no. Danny is not going to suffer a breakdown in front of his partner, even though he is honestly starting to feel a bit better. It has always been like this; close proximity to loved ones seems to combat some of the deleterious effects of the aftershock—the closer the proximity and the more loved the one, the better—but Danny does not want to think about what that means in relation to Steve. Not right now, and probably not later. So he wins the argument and gets dropped off at his apartment, and doesn’t look back even though Steve sits in the parking lot idling his engine for a long minute instead of just driving away. Danny tries to convince himself that the tightness in his chest is just the aftershock announcing its return.

Lying on the sofa bed that night, shaking uncontrollably as he phases in and out of consciousness, Danny is grateful for many things. He is grateful that it is a Friday, for one, because there is no way that he will be good for anything the next few days. He is very grateful that it is not his weekend with Grace for the same reason. And even though he finally has to drag his pillow and blanket off the bed and onto the floor because the shaking has become so intense that the cheap metal frame is clattering and squealing in a way that is bound to wake his neighbors, Danny is grateful that he has the ability to heal people, no matter what he suffers because of it. Because aftershocks this intense mean Kono was hurt very badly. And Danny can only be grateful that he could help her.

The rest of the weekend passes in a similarly uncomfortable fashion but by the time Monday rolls around Danny is confident that he can pull off a day at work. He is nowhere near one hundred percent, but the shaking has been reduced to an occasional minute tremor, he can stay awake for several hours at a time, and most importantly, staying home will only lead to questions he doesn’t want to answer. So he will go in, and blame any noticeable pallor or lethargy on low blood sugar and insomnia.

It doesn’t go perfectly according to plan, of course. Steve is being overly solicitous and keeps hovering over Danny, even after Kono is back in the office on light desk duty with crutches and her leg strapped up to the hips, which is just… so wrong. Not that Kono would ever let any of them hover over her or treat her more carefully due to her injury, but still. Meanwhile, she and Chin keep bringing him malasadas and good coffee because the doctor said that there was no medical explanation for how a wound that extreme could end up causing so little damage and they know that whatever Danny did, whatever first aid he provided is what made the difference, even if they can’t really know how. No one’s actually prying or looking at him suspiciously, but it’s still a little awkward in that his team keeps bringing up the things he wants to forget. He dodges Steve’s concern and Kono’s gratitude as best he can for the first few weeks, and then their caseload gets crazy and “that time that Kono got shot and Danny saved her then kind of got weird about it” is just one more thing that happened.

 

 _II. so fragile and thin_

 _This is bad. This is worse than bad,_ Danny thinks.

His bones are trying to work their way out of his skin and his blood vessels are hardening like cement. He’s on the floor again—there was no point in trying the sofa bed; he was shaking before he even got home. Well, he thinks so, at least, but he doesn’t really remember how he got home.

He does remember the boy.

 _He is chasing the would-be bank robber turned child hostage taker across the rooftop, pushing his body and his knee to the limit because there is no way the piece of shit is getting away with that armful of eight-year old boy, not on Danny’s watch. Steve is coming at the guy from a different angle, gun drawn and ready, but they can’t take a shot because of the kid, the poor kid who fainted from fright a few minutes ago and has got to be just dead weight now._

 _Danny is gaining ground and knows Steve is getting closer too, knows the exact moment when the bad guy knows it, when he realizes that the kid in his arms is more of a hindrance than anything and cuts left, towards the edge of the roof._

 _Danny thinks he yells, is sure he hears Steve shout his name and the sound of one gunshot, then another, but he is over the edge of the roof and jumping down after the kid before there is even time to think about it. It’s not a two story drop to the ground, thank god; there is a lower section of roofing that Danny and the kid have landed on. The impact did nothing good for Danny’s knee, of course, but the kid. Jesus…_

Danny threw up when he got home. Threw up and showered, both. Showering was stupid, he fell twice before he ended up sitting on the floor of the bathtub to finish scrubing the blood out from under his fingernails. Dragged himself out and into a pair of clean boxers and a worn t-shirt, then just curled up on the floor to wait.

 _The kid was still out of it when he got thrown over the ledge, is the thing. So even though it wasn’t as far a distance as it could have been, he couldn’t brace for impact or try to land on his feet, or anything. He just… hit, with all the forces of gravity against him. He landed on his back, arms splayed, one leg at an impossible angle. A puddle of blood growing under his head._

 _Danny is at his side in moments, slides his hand back and under the skull, feeling the hot blood and grind of bones in one way, but feeling that faint pulse of life in another. Not dead, not yet, but it’s going to be close, and Danny has no time for finesse. It’s never been an exact science, this thing he does without knowing how, but now he just closes his eyes and pushes, slams everything he can into this poor kid, thinks about whole bones and slow bleeding and all the important organs being intact._

Danny rolls onto his back and tries to take in some much needed oxygen. Speaking of organs, his heart is beating so fiercely it’s feels like it’s knocking on the outside of his chest, pounding against his ribcage with so much force that the bones finally splinter and crack open.

“Danny!” yells Steve, and Danny slits his eyes open just enough to see his partner crouched next to him. Behind him the door to the apartment hangs at an unnatural angle, letting in bright streams of light that drive spikes into Danny’s brain by way of his eyeballs.

“The window,” he mutters, but that doesn’t sound right.

“Hang on,” says Steve. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

“No!” Danny forces his eyes open wider and tries to get a hang of this talking thing. He’s usually so good at it. “No hospital. ‘m alright.”

“Danny,” says Steve, “what are you… are you crazy? I found you passed out on the floor. You’re like… having a seizure!” He’s got some kind of aneurism face going on for sure, and if Danny could only focus for more than five seconds, he would be able to properly name and catalog it.

“I’m awake,” he protests even as he struggles to keep his lids up. “Just—ants are eating my eyes.”

“Jesus. There’s no way I’m not calling 9-1-1,” and sure enough he has pulled out his cell phone from his amazing, multi-pocketed dream cargos with one hand while the other hovers anxiously over his partners prone form before settling tentatively on his shoulder.

“Slow down, Joseph,” says Danny. Steve’s hand on him feels good, comforting—like an anchor dragging him back to sanity—and he thinks maybe he’ll still be able to talk his way out of this one, if he can just find the right words. Steve is looking awfully worried though, the skin around his eyes and mouth pulled tight. This is wrong; Danny is supposed to worry about Steve, not the other way around. He notices the phone again, thinks of a terrible plan, and sighs.

“Rachel. Call Rachel.”

His eyes are definitely on a downward slide now, but he hears Steve say: “Rachel. You want me to call your ex-wife?”

Didn’t he just say that? Danny is pretty sure that he just said that, and he’s almost positive that he nods.

“Now I know you’re delirious,” says Steve but some of the edge has gone out of his voice and Danny knows he doesn’t need to open his eyes again.

 

 _III. holding on to yourself as best you can_

Danny doesn’t wake up, because waking up when he’s going through the aftershock of an intense healing event is like waking up after having spent the night in a freezer: cold, shaking and stiff. Right now he feels tired and a little achey, but there is a bed and a blanket and a warm body pressed up against him. The body smells like salt and gunpowder and he knows exactly who it is without looking. Since this is an impossible thing he’s just going to stay asleep, thank you very much.

“Are you awake?” says Steve, and hey, the deep rumble of his sleep-scratchy voice is almost as soothing as the hand that has come up to play gently with the hairs at the nape of Danny’s neck. Danny mumbles something that could loosely be interpreted as “no” and burrows further into dream-Steve. Best delirium ever.

“Danny,” he says a little more firmly, and so Danny huffs a little and raises himself up with his forearms. He sees Steve, then, looking warmly rumpled and entirely too big for the cheap little pull-out but also looking tired and worried, and Danny suddenly has a flash of Steve leaning over him with a halo of light behind him, which shit, is some kind of memory because, oh yeah, his partner and boss found him spazzing out on the floor. And has apparently spent the past few hours snuggling with him. Steve is still dressed, but Danny is basically in his underwear, feels practically naked with the thin tee not providing all that much coverage. In his underwear, he thinks, and in Steve’s arms.

He tries to roll away from this insanely unprofessional and personally devastating situation as quickly and as far as possible, but is mostly unsuccessful as Steve is handsy and clingy and fast, moving with Danny so that one hand stays behind his neck and the other rests lightly on his chest.

"Danny," Steve says, and he's obviously trying to be calm and keep his voice steady, but his eyes continue to give him away. "I talked to Rachel. It's the only reason I didn't take you to the hospital. She told me what I could do that would help, about… you know.”

He kind of squeezes Danny’s neck gently as if to call attention to the physical contact, which is seven kinds of ridiculous because it was never out of Danny’s attention. Jesus, he basically forced his boss into bed with him, circumstances or whatever, but if Rachel told him that holding him would help Danny, then it’s not like Steve had a choice, right? He would rather have woken up in agony on the floor than with this terrible knowledge that he has ruined his most important friendship, but it’s too late now so when Steve says: “what the hell is going on?" Danny doesn’t hesitate; there is little left to lose.

“I can heal people,” he says, “but then I feel like shit for a few days,” and god, was that really his voice? He doesn’t remember screaming, he hopes he didn’t spend half the night shrieking, or whatever, but he sounds like he’s been up for a million hours, most of which were spent singing along to AC/DC at a high volume.

Before he can get another word out Steve is pulling away from him and off the bed, and the sense of loss is actually worse than the fact that he instantly starts shaking again. And maybe he’s a little confused and out of it, but he would have expected his partner to give him more than a couple of sentences to explain a pretty complicated story. Especially considering that he had been willing to spend time cuddled up together, like he can believe that his own hugs have magical healing properties but that Danny does not. Typical Steve and his hero complex.

He heaves himself into a sitting position and props himself up against the back of the sofa bed, trying to gain back a little more strength before he goes after his impatient partner. He’s starting to feel like shit again, and knows that if Steve hadn’t stayed with him it would be worse. Even if nothing will ever be the same between them, he owes him an explanation, at least, and hopefully if he can manage to get more than a couple of words out this time Steve will be willing to listen.

Swinging his legs out from under the blankets is hard; even though he knows it all in his head it feels so cold outside of the safety of the bed that he dreads putting his bare soles on the floor.

“What are you doing?” asks Steve. He has stealthed himself in front of Danny where he is perched on the side of the bed psyching himself for further movement. “Do you need to go to the bathroom or something?”

“Seriously?” croaks Danny, looking up, and, just… unbelievable. Steve is standing there with a bottle of water and what looks like a mug of some chicken noodle cup-a-soup that he found god only knows where in the kitchen. Danny suddenly feels a little less cold and a lot more stupid, and just _wants_. He wants this man so much, wants him back in the bed and always around, and wants to tell him, god, everything, and not just because he deserves an explanation, but because he wants to share this with Steve. If he can keep this-- if Steve is always his friend and never anything more, it will still be worth it.

And maybe Steve is a mind reader on top of being a lifesaver, because next thing he puts down the soup and passes Danny the water and is manhandling him back under the covers before getting back up next to him. There is a line of heat where Steve sits pressed up against Danny that feels hotter than the mug he just got handed.  
   
"The first time I found out what I could do, and the first time I actually did it, were not the same time,” says Danny. He has only told this story once before out loud—to Rachel—but has practiced it over and over in his own head. Still, the words are hard to get out, and not just because of his stressed vocal cords.

“I had probably been doing it all my life, unconsciously, or whatever. But Robbie-- the thing with Robbie happened, and I knew.  
   
I'd known Robbie all my life, pretty much. He lived a few doors down, so there was school and scouts and running wild on the streets. It was high school, we were on the way home from baseball practice. Robbie had just turned 16. 16 years old, brand new driver's license, brand new car. You can guess where this is going, I'm sure."  
   
He pauses to take a drink of the soup, which tastes like neither chicken nor noodles, but is blessedly warm, at least.  
   
"So Robbie's going too fast, of course, and it's that time of day where it's just getting dark, so visibility is shit. We're taking some back roads to stretch out the ride, there's a sharp curve and a fucking rabbit, and bam. We spin off the road and into some trees. The car hits hard, crumples the hood, smashes the windshield, just chaos. I black out for a minute or so, when I wake up it’s to that stupid dinging sound, you know the one that warns you that the headlights are on when you open the door?”

Danny pauses for long enough for Steve to realize he’s expecting a response, so he hums softly in agreement, unsure as to whether it is a stall tactic or just Danny needing a break.

“I look over and see Robbie. He’s slumped back in the driver’s seat, and all the angles are wrong. His head… it looks loose, like the neck is just not supporting it, and I can see…”

He trails off, then shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter. He’s fucked up, is what I’m saying. He’s still breathing though, I could hear him. The steering column got him in the chest and his breathing is wrong, it's heavy and wet, but it’s there. So I lean over like I’m going to help him, only what am I going to do? He’s next to me, dying, and I know it. When I touch his shoulder I know right away that it’s dislocated. But more than that, I know… I know that he’s got broken ribs and a punctured lung, and his spinal cord… I know that even if he doesn’t die, he’ll never walk again.

I shouldn’t know these things, but I do. And I’m not thinking, I just—I know I don’t want him hurt, don’t want him to die, and I feel, like, a push. And then I wake up in the hospital, and they tell me it’s been three days since the accident, that I’ve been in a coma. They say that Robbie was a little hurt, mostly shaken up, but he’ll be okay, and no one mentions his neck, and I don’t say what he looked like, slumped in the car like a broken doll. I don’t say much of anything other than that I don’t remember what happened, and the doctors can’t explain the coma but since I seem okay now, they can’t keep me beyond a day or two more.”

Danny is leaning hard against Steve now, exhausted from telling the story, the mug of soup long gone cold in his hands.

“So I can heal people, like I said, which I know sounds crazy,” he says, because now that he’s started he isn’t sure when to stop. “And whatever it is that I do, I don’t know, I have to pay for it. A little pain, like a headache, for a little injury; a few days for something big. Being near someone I care about helps,” he continues, then tenses, because he doesn’t know what Rachel said, maybe she just said human contact, and he didn’t mean to out himself as being a little in love with his partner, as if things weren’t already weird enough.

“Okay,” is all that Steve says, pulling the mug away from him and setting it back down on the end table.

“Okay?” parrots Danny.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, and begins maneuvering Danny back into a lying position on the bed. “The kid—that was a big one, and you only got a few hours sleep. You need more rest.”

“Oh my god, if I could move my arm, I would hit you right now,” says Danny, because really, what kind of a response is that to spilling his deepest secret?

“Relax, Danny, I’ve got you,” says Steve and slides down next to him.

Danny lies tense for a moment, and he kind of wants to ask if Steve believes him, how he possibly could, but he knows the answer anyway, in a different way than he knows about injuries that is still half instinct and half hope. He also wants to ask if this willingness to sleep with Danny extends beyond making him feel better, but he’s not that brave. Instead he says: “Robbie never talked to me again. I don’t know why, really, but I never blamed him.”

“Maybe he felt guilty that you suffered for him, for his mistakes,” says Steve quietly, and there is something in his tone that pings a warning in Danny, but he is being lulled back to sleep by the warmth and comfort of the bed and Steve.

He manages one more moment of panic that once again he is in bed with his partner, and then even that is gone.

 

 _IV. the blood in my veins_

Waking up next to Steve a second time should be even more embarrassing, except that he manages to slip away from Steve and his grabby hands and out of the bed without waking him. Now that he has the time and more presence of mind to think about it, Steve had probably not slept much the first time around, having only the word of Danny's ex that simply touching his partner would keep him from needing hospitalization. How long had Steve lain there, Danny wonders, watching him sleep and wondering if he dozed off himself, whether he would wake up to find Danny worse, shaking or unconscious or dead. The trust he placed in Danny over what was no doubt his better judgement is humbling.

These are the thoughts Danny has as he hides in the bathroom; also humbling and probably more embarrassing than simply brazening it out with Steve on the pull-out. Still, even with that sense of embarrassment and the fact that the room is kind of trashed-- his bloody clothes are shoved in one corner and the shower curtain is hanging by a lone ring-- he can't bring himself to leave until Steve finally bangs on the door, hard, and says: "are you okay in there?" which reminds Danny that 1) Steve is still worried about him, and 2) of what Steve did to his front door. He's never going to get his deposit back and he promptly informs his partner of this fact as he emerges from the bathroom. The door is back in place in the frame, but it looks like a strong breeze could knock it down.

"Sorry for my concern about your safety," replies Steve snidely, but Danny can see his relief that Danny is up and around and bitching as usual. Danny himself is a little amazed at how good he feels and knows that all the credit goes to Steve, a thought both reassuring and terrifying.

“What the hell time is it anyway,” says Danny as he heads towards the kitchen, Steve trailing after him like a giant, loomy shadow. It’s dark outside and when Danny checks the digital clock on the microwave he sees that it’s already past 11pm. They got the call for the whole bank hostage thing late morning, so Danny guesses he’s been out of commission for over 10 hours. And he subsequently kept his partner from doing anything worthwhile for that same amount of time. Super.

“Shit, babe, you’d better hit the road,” says Danny and pretends not to notice when Steve’s jaw drops.

“What?” says Steve with palpable astonishment.

“It’s late,” replies Danny, “and, you know, you’ve got to drive home. I mean, you probably don’t feel tired now, because… yeah.”

He mentally grinds to a halt as he tries to think of a way to indicate that they slept without actually saying that they slept together. He decides to skip it. “But let me tell you, sleeping on the pull-out when you’re not used to it. It’s not restful. You’re going to want to catch a few more hours in a real bed, I promise you.”

Steve’s face has been getting stonier throughout Danny’s speech and now he stalks towards the smaller man who finds himself suddenly backed up against the counter. The kitchen has never been considered big by any stretch of the imagination, but this is the first time Danny has noticed how confining it is.

“Steve,” he starts again but is cut off.

“If you think,” Steve nearly snarls, “that I am leaving before we talk about this—”

“Talk about what?” interrupts Danny with as much innocent indignation as he can pull off. Steve is right there in his personal space and doing a nice imitation of an angry predator which Danny finds more sexy than he should. He needs to get his partner out of here before he does something that can’t be blamed on a healing aftershock.

“I already told you pretty much everything. What I said about healing people—is, like, literally all that I know. There’s… there’s nothing else to talk about because there’s nothing left to say!”

And okay, maybe his logic is starting to get a little circular, but you try holding on to your train of thought when you’ve got a trained Navy SEAL staring daggers at you.

“Danny,” says Steve and his tone is less snarly, but still full of barely restrained frustration. “I understand about the healing part. We need to talk about the rest… about what Rachel said. The reason I could help you.”

“We really don’t,” counters Danny wildly. “We can just forget about it, okay. It doesn’t have to matter. It doesn’t have to mean anything,” and suddenly Steve backs off completely, not moving a muscle but Danny watches him turn off all those intense emotions like a machine powering down and wonders with a growing sense of dread what he has just done in his desperation to salvage this friendship.

“Right,” says Steve toneless and moves away physically this time. “You’re right,” he repeats and heads back over to the sofa bed, but only to pull out his shoes from under the bed where he had so neatly placed them, tidy even under the strangest of circumstances.

“Steve, wait,” says Danny following after him, but Steve is not waiting, he is slipping on his shoes and heading for the door.

“Godammit, Steve,” yells Danny as his partner reaches the door and grabs the handle. The entire door comes out of its frame with the strength of his pull, the boards splintering into shards with all the force of a small explosion.

There is a stunned silence, not just from the two men inside the apartment, but also from old Mrs. Kuwabara, Danny’s neighbor, the one who likes to gossip and take walks at night and who had no doubt been passing by and stopped to linger once she heard raised voices.

“And me in my skivvies, too,” says Danny faintly, sitting down hard on the bed as she scurries away to no doubt tell, oh, only everyone she knows.

Steve looks back at him with a shocked and guilty expression on his face and a piece of door still clutched in his hand, and Danny doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Who knew that this stupid healing aftershock thing also made him hormonal?

“I’m sorry Danny,” says Steve, and he’s not looking at the door when he says it either.

“Inside,” says Danny. “Now. Forget the door.”

Steve carefully lays his piece on top of the piles of splinters that once served as a barrier to the outside world.

“I’ll get you a new one,” he says.

“Of course you will,” replies Danny, “but not now. Now, it seems, we’re going to have a little talk, you and I.”

“It’s… really, forget about it, Danny,” says Steve, and he sounds defeated. “You were right. It doesn’t have to matter.”

“I don’t know that I was right,” says Danny slowly, considering his words. “I don’t know that we’re talking about the same thing at all.”

And Steve looks confused which is better than defeated, and he moves away from the door, which is better than bolting out of it, Danny figures.

“Come here," he says, "please."

Steve moves a few steps closer then pauses, looking mulishly at the bed.

"Steve, I'm not going to jump you," says Danny in exasperation and something flickers across Steve's face too quickly to be deciphered before he sighs and sits next to Danny.

"What did she tell you?" asks Danny without preamble. "Rachel, I mean."

Steve stays silent for a moment.

"Steve--"

"I told her how I found you. She said it was up to you to explain what was going on, but that she was coming over. When I asked her what she was going to do, she said..."

Steve pauses and takes a deep breath, staring down at his hands clenched tight in his lap.

"She said that close contact with someone that loved you would help stave off the worst of it. So... I told her not to come over, that I would handle it."

He risks a glance at Danny and sees all the shocked disbelief that he had been dreading. At least the conversation will be over soon.

"She said _what_?" exclaims Danny.

Steve blinks. "She said..." he trails off, feeling a slow burn of anger build. "Did she _lie_?" he demands, furious to think that Rachel could be so vindictive that she might have let Danny suffer on purpose.

"No," says Danny, but he looks and sounds anything but certain. "I mean, I don't think so. I just... I always thought it was the other way around. I don't know."

He runs his hand through his hair, then freezes.

"You said you would handle it?" he asks Steve in a deceptively mild tone. "What does that mean?"

Steve tries for a casual shrug. "You said you thought it was the other way around," he replies in an equally even tone. "What does that mean?"

They stare at each other for a moment.

Danny says, "I thought that what helped was to be in contact with someone that I loved, like Rachel or Gracie or..." he stops, shakes his head, then continues. "I guess Rachel thought what mattered was that the person loved me. Unsurprisingly, it's not the first time we've disagreed on an issue."

Steve's eyes are hopeful and he does not look away. "So which way is right?" he asks.

Danny shakes his head helplessly.

"Could they both be right?" Steve continues, and waits. He thinks he would wait forever for this answer; fortunately it doesn't come to that.

"Yeah," says Danny on an exhale. "I'm thinking that's exactly it. They're both right."

There is a beat, and neither of them could say who moves first, but they turn to each other like being pulled into orbit. Steve rests his forehead against Danny's, trails his hand up his back and then cups the back of his neck, a spot he fell in love with sometime between the first nap and the second. Danny has his arms wrapped around Steve, grabs great fistfuls of his shirt and drags him forwards and then abruptly pulls him back.

"Wait," he says, and Steve says, "fuck."

"Really, Danny?" he continues. "You're having second thoughts already?"

Danny starts to say something but Steve charges on, sounding a little desperate and a little mad and a lot determined, but his hand on Danny is still gentle.

"We're doing this, Danny, because we want to and we need to and we're fucking _supposed_ to, okay, so just... I love you. I am in love with you. I'll say it and I'll prove it, you just need to-- just be there with me."

Steve stops and stares at his partner who gives him a bemused smile.

"The threat of blueballs kind of makes you chatty. Loquacious even."

"Danny," warns Steve.

"Steven," replies Danny. "I have no door."

Steve looks over at the pile of wood fragments in the doorway and the peaceful Hawaiian night sky beyond it.

"Oh," he says. "Right."

"Oh," mimics Danny and then he grins. "You neanderthal, you break down my door and tell me I'm supposed to be with you? Is that what passes for romance these days?"

"I can give you romance," says Steve and he is still and serious like he thinks he has something to prove. Danny cups the side of his face and Steve leans into the touch.

"I love you too, Steve. And you don't have to give me anything. Except for a new door."

Steve sighs a little, turns his head and presses a warm kiss into Danny's palm, a small gesture that technically shouldn't ignite a bombfire in Danny's belly but somehow does.

"The door," he reminds them both, "and my neighbors."

Steve smirks, then. "My house," he says, "has doors. With locks. Windows with blinds, even. And a bed you can actually sleep on."

"Like sleeping is what you have in mind," says Danny fondly. He has to admit, the idea has merit.

Steve's smirk grows and he stands, then pulls Danny to his feet.

"Pack a bag. You're coming home with me," he says.

"Yeah, okay. Until you get my door fixed."

Steve doesn't reply, and Danny pauses in the act of finding clean pants to stare at his partner.

"How are you-- how is it possible for you to be so smug?" groans Danny in disbelief. "There is no way you can take credit for any of this," and his expansive gesture includes the door, the room, the entire situation.

"Danno," says Steve, cheerful now that everything has fallen into place the way he never thought it could. "You should have more faith in me."

"If I had any more faith in you I'd call you god and pray to you every night," Danny grumbles under his breath.

"We'll get there," Steve confidently assures him, and then ducks as a loafer goes hurtling by.


End file.
